By Aug. 30, 2007, former SA President Nicole Capp and former Executive Vice President Brand Kroeger had helped to bring back the GW Reads newspaper program, restore the Colonial Invasion basketball kickoff and convinced Safeway to accept GWorld.

While we are sure there are initiatives in the tank, we have not seen equivalent progress from the current executive and senate. Understandably, student organization allocations have been dominating the agenda for the early part of the year, but now that allocations season is almost over, the SA can turn to other matters.

It is worth remembering that small, tangible accomplishments are far more important to students than overly ambitious initiatives. Here are our top 5 things the SA could do this semester to immediately impact students, drawn from last spring’s platforms and also our own thoughts:

1. J Street and study hours

Freshmen and sophomores are required to spend a chunk of their GWorld money at J Street, yet it is not open late at night and on weekends during important collegiate dining hours. In fact, the options during those hours are pretty sparse anywhere on campus. Students could also really use, as usual, more spaces to study later at night.

2. A master calendar of events

This would require a lot of coordination, but it would be immensely beneficial for students to go to one calendar and see what is going on at GW that week, across all schools and departments. Students will often miss a speaker or an event simply because they are not on that department’s listserv or just not in the know. A master calendar could also increase attendance at campus events.

3. Cutting the red tape

Members of the SA are often more aware of what various University departments do or who to go to for certain problems. A question and answer form on the SA Web site could increase student contact with SA representatives and also traffic on the site, while helping students cut the red tape.

4. Test bank

The online test bank, which has apparently been in the works since last spring, should go live before finals this semester, if not before midterms. This idea is a good one, but it needs to be implemented soon to have any relevance.

5. Expanding free printing

This initiative appeared in a lot of platforms and should be another accomplishment on the SA’s list this semester. While engineering students have gotten free printing in the past, all students should have access to free or discounted printing. Perhaps students could even have a set amount of “printing money” on GWorld.

Read and respond: What do you want to see from the SA this semester?

Related: Staff Editorial: Student Association allocations season.